Christmas: 5 November 2013

The Christmas stamps this year have been designed by Robert Maude and
Sarah Davies using art from previous centuries - except for the £1.88.

Royal Mail have explored the Madonna and Child imagery across the widest
breadth of timescales and artistic interpretations, not restricted to
representations from only British sources. They have also decided
that one of the designs would be reflective of ethnic diversity in
the UK*. As such, they commissioned a new Madonna and Child image
for the £1.88 stamp by Fadi Mikhail.

As usual the stamps will be in standard and large letter definitive size
and self adhesive.This year the stamps are in a similar
format but larger in both dimensions - 24 x 28mm and 34 x 28mm.

There will also be a conventionally-gummed miniature sheet containing all
stamps, booklets of 12 x 1st and 12 x 2nd stamps - which will be larger
than the conventional definitive booklets - which may bring some problems
for non-post office retailers like supermarkets.

The Smilers Generic sheet with 8 (few people spotted that typo!) each of
the 2nd and 1st class, 2 x 88p, and one each of the £1.28 and £1.88. This
means that there will be only one set of Cartor litho-printed stamps in
each sheet.

The two 2007 Madonna stamps
will not be reissued this year, and will be replaced by the 2013 to
provide the religious alternative for the next few years.

* The last time this approach was used was with the 2005
Christmas issue, which used the Black Madonna painted by an
unknown Haitian artist. Most criticism,
however, came from the Hindu community leaders regarding the 68p
which was illustrated with a Mughal painting from India dating from
1620. However, despite assertions in some parts of the press, on the
web, and especially by eBay sellers, the stamps were never withdrawn and
are no more valuable than their contempories.

Technical details:

The Madonna stamps were designed by Robert Maude and Sarah Davies and are
printed by De La Rue Security Print, Gateshead in gravure. The
self-adhesive stamps are 34 x 28mm, perf 14.5 x 14 in sheets of 50 with
phosphor bands as appropriate. The gummed miniature sheet is
printed by De La Rue in gravure. The booklets are printed by
International Security Printers in gravure, overall size 89 x 65mm.
The generic sheet is printed by International Security Printers in litho.

The 47 x 30mm competition
stamps are self-adhesive printed by International Security
Printers in gravure. The phosphor bands are on the white area at the
right (2nd class) and left and right (1st class), meaning that a shift of
only 1.5mm downwards/to the left would leave the 1st class as a
single-banded stamp!

They are in separate sheets of 25, in concertina-folded style similar to
pre-2006 Christmas booklets and current business sheets (see right).
The stamps will be sold singly on
request, not only in sheets.

Products issued, available from Royal Mail (we will not
be stocking these):

Personalised Smilers sheets (except 2nd class) will be available in A5
format with 10 stamps/labels as standard. The £1.88 will not be available
for personalisation despite being included in the generic sheet. The 2nd
class sheet format is 20 stamps/labels in a horizontal format A4 sheet.

Competition stamps:
Set of 2 stamps, presentation pack, first day cover. None
of these will be provided against Tallents House standing orders,
so they must be bought separately from there or from Post Office branches.

Special Postmarks

Special postmarks available for the day of issue will be shown here
(not to scale), others may be added later.